


An Open Letter to the Future

by ElvishPotterhead



Series: A Collection of Short Stories [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, War, memorial, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29324349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvishPotterhead/pseuds/ElvishPotterhead
Summary: “We used to be great. We used to be known for money and powder and riches, and now we fall to a threat our world has never seen.”An angsty story about two women who died in a fictional past war and the fight against an alien race.
Series: A Collection of Short Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152455





	An Open Letter to the Future

An Open Letter to the Future  
Written by me  
1/2/21  
Includes: angst, lesbian romance, death, war

There was a museum dedicated only to the great heroes of the wars. There was an entire wing dedicated to the heroes of The Black War. And there was a large painting on the right wall as soon as one walked into the wing. Two women were depicted in bright, cheerful colors and they held each other close. One, a redhead, held a sword with one hand. She wore armor that hadn't been used since before technology. The war had been fought entirely without tech due to a complete blackout worldwide that lasted months. She had her long hair braided and her face was streaked with dirt but she smiled brightly at the women whose face she chooses with her free hand. The other woman had Asian features and wavy brown hair that brushed her shoulders. Her lips were slightly parted and she gripped the waist of the redhead, bringing their hips together. Her other arm wrapped around the redhead's waist and curved upward to splay her fingers out between her shoulder blades. She wore a cream colored button up in a men's cut tucked into ripped black skinny jeans and leather boots that zipped to her knees. There were braids in her hair that were nearly hidden and, if one studied the painting long enough, they would notice the shimmering bands on each young woman's left ring finger.   
Some would argue that the women were engaged to different men and this was a greeting- or a goodbye. However, others- usually those who knew more about the women than a glance of the portrait would share- would instead reply that these women were romantically involved. It was typical at the time of the Black War for women who fought together to get away with relationships with little backlash. It was also fairly common for those who believed same-sex relationships to be against the ideals of some God to let it be. If their God could dictate the lives of those who could not decided whether or not He was real, then He could also end the war. But He did not, and so those who loved did so in virtual peace.   
However, critics who were certain that the women depicted were romantically involved were split on another matter as well. While female soldiers could often get away with relationships with each other while at war, there was no true evidence that both women were, in fact, soldiers.   
Not until over fifty years since the war had passed. When architect Wanda Alexander discovered a city buried under the rubble in an uninhabited amount of land in Southern Canada, she and her team dedicated months to uncovering what of it they could. After some time of digging in the middle of what had been a dead zone since the beginning of the war, they discovered that the whole city was almost meticulously preserved. There, they found the long-sought-after answers to who exactly the two women in the painting were. A picture depicting the exact thing the painting showed was discovered and a message on the back revealed that the red haired woman in both the painting and the picture had taken it upon herself to have to painting made as a wedding gift for the woman she was holding. The picture was an engagement photo that was hastily taken as the redhead had proposed on the spur of the moment right before being moved from her nearly destroyed hometown to a base in the southeastern United States.   
Also discovered was a chest that belonged to the dark haired women. Locked inside were several items of jewelry on expensive metals, many well-loved books, a large scrapbook with a faded red cover, and a leather-bound diary.   
After the discoveries in Canada, a plaque was installed beneath the painting alongside some of the artifacts. It only stated the names of the women and a few simple facts, but it was enough to get the message across.  
Isabelle Kim and Iris Jameson: engaged. Casualties of a war that would not be remembered without their sacrifice.  
Included in the discovery, but not shown to the public except on an obscure Tumblr blog that one had to know the name of to find, were the entires in the diary kept by Miss Isabelle Kim. And no one but Ms. Alexander would ever read such a diary until a decade later, when scholars finally won and argument and had it published to sit on a shelf in old libraries with other diaries written in the past during times we cannot remember. 

We used to be great. We used to be known for money and powder and riches, and now we fall to a threat our world has never seen. The internet is down. I had not spoken to anyone outside of my town in months. I can barely leave my home for fear that one of them might catch me. I don't want to die here.

Iris is my only lifeline now. She has joined the army and I fear that she will soon be taken away from me. My parents say it is for the better. That I might choose to marry and man once she is gone. I might just run off with her.

Iris has promised that when she gets back we will be married. When she gets back, and this is over, nothing can take her away again.

I want to visit her. Her family was once the grandest in the area. Now her house is in shambles. Her father is gone, and her mother is a shell of her former self. Iris does not tell me what it is like, but I know. I feel the same way. This war has brought so much suffering.   
Iris gave me a wedding band as an engagement ring since we cannot have the rings we would have gotten. I will wear it without regret, though, because this is everything I could have asked for in a time such as this. Iris is supposed to go to the US soon. I don't want her to leave.

Iris is gone now. I spend every day waiting for her to come back, and every night dreaming of a world in which there was no war and no need for her to go. I try to stay strong, but the letters get fewer and fewer each month and I'm afraid of a time where there are none.

The battles were over quickly and Iris is due to return in a few days. New soldiers will be sent to the base, and while they do allow women in now, the military only truly wants the women who control their troops. Iris is just a rich girl in old armor to them. I would be angry if I wasn't overjoyed that she was coming back.

As I write this, my hand trembles. A bomb hit the area close to us and while the buildings still stand, we do not. Iris did not make it. She is still breathing, but I am writing this as I hold her because she will not make it. There are people coming. People with guns. Iris' breathing grows ragged and I do not want to miss her last moments.

Iris is gone and so am I. I hear screaming. There is gunfire and nothing else. I can't stop sobbing and I can barely catch a breathe, but living is not of much use anyway. My family is already gone. My Love is gone. I hope they take me just so that I do not have to live in a world without the woman who would have been my wife. I made sure to wear my best today so that when my body is buried, I will not go on to the next life looking like I had no life at all. And I will send my regards to Satan so that he knows exactly which of us who died fighting deserve reincarnation and which of us deserve the pits.  
An open letter to the future- Isabelle Kim

**Author's Note:**

> ————— the following will explain a bit  
> I wrote all of this in less than an hour because I like women. It wasn't originally going to be angsty but I just love the idea of a romance preserved in time for decades. The war is based on season five of She-Ra and a twisted sort of World War Three type situation. There was a worldwide blackout and they reverted back to armor and swords and that type of stuff because of it. I just love a woman in armor. Basically: Iris died because she was exposed to the bomb and ran back to Isabelle so that she could die with the woman she loved. Isabelle was shot by the enemy holding Iris. The enemy is aliens who arrived and just really did not like humans. Later, Iris and Isabelle were discovered by those searching the scene and they were buried in the city cemetery in one marked grave along with their families. Iris' father died in the war, but her mother died of grief only a month after discovering that Iris was dead. When Wanda Alexander discovered everything, it was like everything had been preserved in a bubble. The rubble that feel from war and bombing and pollution what preserved it. Eventually the whole area was restored and became and war memorial. And yes, I came up with all of this just now.


End file.
